Ricoh has teamed up with training and management consultancy business Strategyzer to develop a personalised post sales consultancy support for customers, using business analysis tools that the consultancy firm has developed.
The aim is to help identify and develop the products and services that a printer can deliver which will valued by clients and so break free from the commodity print trap.
It is an evolution of the Ricoh Business Booster educational website and will be marketed as Edge. The concept was introduced at the Future Print online conference last week in a session where Mark Hinder, responsible for business development in commercial print at Ricoh Europe, was joined by Andy Martiniello head of growth from Strategyzer.
“As a result of Covid, print companies have been forced to adjust their printing plans, they have to look for new market, new customers and business opportunities,” says Hinder. “This means when it comes to marketing, they see this as a priority but the ability to create and deliver effective marketing has been challenging and in some cases printers are not doing any marketing at all.”
The approach starts with breaking a business down into nine aspects covering the business model, how operates and its customers, mapping these on to what is called the business canvas.
Key to this is a way of describing, and thus identifying, opportunities for new products. It begins with ideation, says Martiniello, followed by the tools to reality check and test the ideas via a feedback loop that will spot those concepts that will never work and identify those with greatest potential. And this comes before any sums are directed towards product developments.
“As many as 72% of new products fail because customers do not want them,” he adds. “This tests assumptions, is about identifying the evidence and the risks, encouraging the company to find new evidence if needed.” It will reduce the failure rate associated with new product introductions.
Ricoh identified the need for this after seeing customers struggle and lose business, as much as a 50% drop in revenue for some, in the lockdowns across Europe. Eef de Ridder, vice president commercial and industrial printing group, Ricoh Europe, says: “The pandemic led us to accelerate the introduction of RBB Edge – and adapt the programme’s focus to supporting PSPs as they pivot into the new world of print.
“The entire programme will cover a multitude of areas where our clients have asked for help which includes capitalising on the opportunities arising from an effective ecommerce strategy. And helping them to design and implement marketing strategies to attract new clients.”
Mark Hinder explains that Ricoh‘s partnership with Strategyzer will help its customers to innovate with new products and then market these. Product innovation will be key to success in the new normal, Ricoh believes.
